AT 109 and full of fun, the region's oldest woman laughed loudly and often as she celebrated her birthday yesterday.

Florence Cox told tales going back to a time before the First World War to when Queen Victoria reigned.

Mrs Cox, who lives in South Bank, near Middlesbrough, said: "We were always laughing, my family, especially me. I'd laugh if I was on fire.

"Mind you, it wasn't all good times. My father, who ran a grocery store, would make people a big bowl of soup to keep them fed in the hard times.

"Another shopkeeper heard about it and gave them bread as well. Things are much better these days."

Mrs Cox was a member of the Forster family, born in the village of Mickleton, near Barnard Castle, County Durham.

The family moved to nearby Middleton-in-Teesdale then to the Harrowgate Hill area of Darlington.

She said: "I used to help in my father's shop, which was also an off-licence.

"I pulled down a lot of beer but never drank any, and sold a lot of cigarettes but never smoked any.

"The only time I ever had a drink was quite recently when my doctor said I should have a sherry, but I don't really like it."

She went out to work, at one time at The Cricketers pub in Darlington, and met her husband, Will, during the First World War, at Middlesbrough railway station.

Mrs Cox and her late husband, who worked in the Eston iron mines before working on the buses, lived in the Eston, South Bank and Redcar areas of Teesside over the years. The couple had two daughters, Susie and Mabel, who has died.

Mrs Cox, who lives at Primrose Court Residential Home, said she was still enjoying life, adding: "They try to put me in a wheelchair, but I say while I can walk I will."

England's oldest person is Annie Churchill, of Goring-by-Sea, Sussex, who is 110.

Mrs Churchill's daughter, Irene Dennis, said: "I know my mother would love to give her regards to Mrs Cox, she sounds so lovely."